I look out over the plain. It is growing late. My father, on his horse, calls to me: "Gundegmaa! Come on. We'd best go back to camp."

We are only a little way off. We have been treating a few of our reindeer, that have fallen sick. The disease isn't contagious, thankfully. We don’t have to kill any, and spend a long night seeing if any fur is salvageable, as we did last fall when five does caught a plague. My father cut their throats with his long knife, and skinned them, but there was little of value left. I climb on to my horse. We only watch our herd for half the year; our relatives from the Far Northern tribe we share it with watches it in Winter. We are connected by marriage; my brother-in-law is their chiefs’ nephew. They actually ride reindeer, but we can use our horses in the warm months. The Camp is full of people; our family and others of our clan. There are a few foreigners there too. My husband, Perle, rides over on his horse. “Gundegmaa,” he says. “One of the foreigners wants to talk to my father. I think you should come”

We walk over to the second-largest yurt. My father-in-law is sitting there. He is an old man with white hair, and a heavily lined face. I bow upon seeing him. “Gundegmaa,” he whispers. “Nice of you… to come.”Then there is the foreigner. He is dressed in the clothes of an aristocrat of his land, with a wide-brimmed black hat on his head. In his country, everyone lives in cities or farmsteads, and none herd like we do, or live in yurts. The foreigner bows his head slightly. “Good day to you,” he says.

“My name is Kim Sung-wan. I come from the Ministry of the Frontier of the Morning Kingdom, domain of his majesty Yejong, master of the five provinces and lord over the Ember isles.”“And what business brings you to our camp?” I say. “In Border Town,” says my father-in-law, “One of my grandsons found him and brought him. This grandson of mine, Tsakhiagh, will be with us… shortly.”“And why did Tsakhiagh bring this man?”“He has found something he needs help with, in the forested lands.” “Here he is now,” says Perle. Tsakhiagh enters the tent. He is a young man, much younger than me. His moustache is thin and shiny-black. He is very handsome, and is engaged to one of the northerners. “Tell us what you found, Tsakiagh,” says my father-in-law. The young man speaks, a bit nervously. “Three days ago, I was hunting in the forests with my friends and one of their fathers. We had gone a ways past the big river – ““You aren’t supposed to hunt over there,” says father-in-law. “That’s devil territory. They have a little cave that leads down under the earth where they live. One of my brothers, when I was growing up, he got taken by them. We were four. Never saw him after that.”“I am sorry I went there, Grandfather,” says Tsakiagh. “When we went over there, one of my friends walked over past a rock, and there was a tiger there. Birvaa put an arrow through its eye, and we finished it off with a few more. Not far away, we found a body.”“A human body?” asks father-in-law.“A body of a little grey devil,” he says. There is a silence.

“It had been killed by the tiger,” says Tsakiagh. “It was carrying a strange object. I have it in this bag.”Tsakiagh takes his pack, and opens it. He removes a thick metal tube, open at one end. “What is it?” says my father-in-law.“I know a man who could tell us,” says the foreigner, Kim Sung-wan. “A man in my country who knows something of the devils. He told us of a thing like this.”“We should take it to him. Take it to a man who knows what to do with it,” says my father-in-law.“Perhaps we should not just give this away,” I say.“What use do we have for such a cursed object?” says my father-in-law. “If the foreigner will take it off our hands, we should let him. I don’t want a devil object in the camp.”“Very well,” I say. Kim Sung-wan speaks. “I have a guard of Prairie Tribe warriors that accompanied me here, but If I am going back with this, I feel we should have more people to protect it. Otherwise it would be better to destroy it rather than risk its falling into the hands of enemies. Would any warriors in this camp agree to protect it, do you think?”